News of the death of Chancellor Marin spread quickly about the Palace the following morning and was greeted with great sadness. While the hunting trip was to go ahead, the Prince and the senior members of the court would be remaining behind. Amero had congratulated Soren on a job well done at breakfast that morning, but he had not seen him since. There was great excitement surrounding the departure of the hunting party, coupled with mourning in some sections of the court. It appeared that Marin had been very popular with some, and resented by others. Either way, Soren had done his duty and successfully completed his mission. He was comfortable in the thought that the threat Chancellor Marin had represented to Ostia was now gone.
He awoke with a start in the carriage on the morning of their second day travelling north. As a foreign dignitary he had been given a carriage to himself, which he was grateful for as it allowed him to stretch out and sleep for most of the journey. He opened the shutter and window on the door to peer out, and was amazed to see the entire landscape covered in a blanket of white. His breath formed a cloud as it floated out of the window, while the fresh air coming in was freezing cold and dry. He coughed slightly at first until his lungs grew accustomed to the crisp bite, but his attention was completely monopolized by the fairy-tale landscape.
The wheels of the carriage made a ‘shushing’ sound as they ploughed through the churned up snow that had been left behind by the carriages and horses in front. Despite the cold, Soren could not stop himself from leaving the window open and revelling in the way the chilly air felt against his skin and in his lungs. He took in all the majesty of the snow covered scenery, as thick forest broke to allow craggy snow covered peaks burst through and reach up so high Soren had to stick his head out of the window and look almost directly up to see the sky.
After an hour or so more, the carriages bumped to a halt and Soren jumped out. His boots hit the snow and crunched and squeaked their way down until the snow had compressed to a solid base beneath them. He reached down and took a handful of the light powdery substance and was surprised to see how dry it was initially, until the warmth of his hand began to melt it.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Alys had gotten out of her carriage in front and her ladies were fussing over cloaks and fur wraps behind her.
‘It’s fantastic!’ Soren shouted back, a smile splitting his face from ear to ear. He looked back at the handful of snow, which was now no more than a puddle of slush dripping between his fingers. He could not help but feel a childish excitement and curiosity at the alien environment.
He jumped as he was hit in the face with a slapping thud of snow. He cleared it from his face in bewilderment. The cold burned his skin in a strange but not entirely unpleasant way. As his vision cleared, he saw Alys standing a few yards away, laughing furiously, her hands red from the cold of the snow she had just been holding.
‘I’m glad you like it!’ she shouted back between laughs.
Soren continued to scoop snow from his ears, mouth and nose, noticing that the blanket of snow seemed to dull all ambient sound, giving the moment an incredible sense of peace and serenity. It was like nothing he had ever experienced, and he loved it.
C h a p t e r 2 2
THE HUNT
The Summer Palace was true to Ruripathian fashion and was a magnificent building. It seemed to be an attempt to blend opulence with a rustic charm that gave it a different, more relaxed character to the buildings in the city, but that was not to say it was any less impressive. It blended into its forested and mountainous surroundings perfectly. It was hard to picture what it would look like in the summer though, with the snow blotting out most of the features around it.
The interior was warm and welcoming with great crackling fireplaces ensuring that the temperature inside was high enough so as to require one to quickly remove the heavy outer-garments they had been wearing in the cold outside.
They spent the rest of the day relaxing in there, drinking heavily sweetened tea that was laced with a fruit liquor that Soren could not identify and had at first found sickly, but gradually became accustomed to. He sat with Alys and her ladies and several gentlemen who had made the journey with them. Cards and dice seemed to be the pastime of choice. Others had been arriving over the course of the day, all heading there as soon as they had gotten word of a royal hunting party. Favour with the ruling elite was unsurprisingly a prized commodity, and impressing at a hunt was a sure way of gaining it. Banneret of the Grey, Captain Jarod, the Royal Hunt Master, was a prime example of this.
Soren had been introduced to him shortly after arriving. Alys had told him that he was the son of a minor and impoverished lord and had been taken along by his father’s lord to a hunt as a favour. He had displayed great bravery when faced by a wounded and very angry belek, and had won himself a belek cloak, and a post as Master of the Royal Hunt for the remainder of his life. A barony would likely be the reward for his years of loyal service when the time came for him to retire.
He looked far older than his years, with a stern and serious countenance always present on a face that looked as though it had been hewn from the mountains of his birthplace. He was something of an enigma in the court, and set the hearts of many of the ladies fluttering with his commanding and dignified bearing. Many of the stories Soren heard about him came from their gossiping, and Soren had no doubt that they had been heavily embellished. Nonetheless, if they contained even a grain of truth, some of them were very impressive indeed.
His body, it was said, was criss-crossed with the scars left by belek teeth and claws. He was the saviour of many aristocrats, delivering a killing blow with deadly precision an instant before the belek was about to perform a similar deed on a Ruripathian nobleman. It seemed he had made himself into something of a legend in hunting circles, always dependable, stoical and distant. It didn’t particularly impress Soren, but the ladies of court relished it.
Hunting clothes had been made for him, rushed along by royal decree, and they fit perfectly. Despite being thick and bulky they were well designed and did not restrict movement at all. However, in the heated interior of the palace, they were overly warm, and Soren found himself in a sweat by the time he stepped out into the not so fresh air of the stable courtyard.
He had difficulty recognising who was who as many were already wearing the hat that was part of the early season hunting uniform. It was fur lined with a perforated flap that fastened around the face, covering the mouth, but more importantly the nose. Jarod had given Soren a briefing the previous night, and had told him that at this time of the year it was important to keep it fastened to safe guard against the dangers of something called frost bite. Apparently one’s nose could turn black and drop off from it, although the thought made Soren smile and he found it hard to believe. Perhaps the steely Jarod was capable of humour after all. Jarod was easily spotted though, from the crimson embroidery on the sleeves of his coat denoting him as the master of the hunt. Nevertheless, upon seeing so many others wearing it fastened, he resolved to do the same as soon as they got going.
‘Your horse, and your spear. Can you use them?’ asked Jarod.
The spear was a wicked thing, longer than he was tall with a stout wooden shaft. The tip was razor sharp, barbed and with a cross guard a few inches back from the tip. It was designed to do the maximum damage with one thrust and then to be easy to withdraw. With a belek it was rare that one would get the chance at a second strike though. Jarod mentioned that the cross guard also helped to prevent the beast from driving the spear through its body in order to get at its attacker. They sounded like truly fearsome prey.
‘Yes, I’ve training with both. I’ll be fine,’ said Soren. He was glad that riding was a part of the training at the Academy, in addition to the hours of weapons drills. Despite the sword being the weapon of choice, all weapons were taught. One never knew what would be available to them on the battlefield.
He had been introduced to many of the other hunters the day before, but they all kept their di
stance. Some were like him, on their first hunt and were clearly quiet due to nerves, while others had casually breezed into the palace the day before wearing their belek cloaks with a confident and haughty air about them. The Princess was sulking in her chambers, after having been strictly forbidden from coming on the hunt by Jarod, on the instructions of her father. The Prince had one state funeral to attend to and had no interest in encouraging a second, he had said.
They trotted out of the stable courtyard in single file, twenty of them in total. There were twelve members of the Ruripathian nobility, himself and Jarod, and six huntsmen. The clip clop of the horses hooves was quickly replaced by a quieter crunching sound as they left the cobbles and reached the snow covered ground, although the peacefulness of the scene was broken intermittently when one of the hunters blew a note on their small, brass hunting horns.
They rode heavy Ruripathian horses, the type used by the old Imperial heavy cavalry that had won such fame in all corners of the world. They were giants by comparison to the swift and trim horses found in the south. He had been told that despite their size, they were deceptively quick, and that when properly trained, even without a rider they were fierce fighting machines that craved battle. Legend had it that in the early days, before the Empire, if a Ruripathian cavalryman’s horse was killed in battle he would later commit suicide, such was the bond of friendship and trust between man and beast, which would have been gifted to him when he became an adult. It was harsh, but the horses really were magnificent creatures.
They rode for several hours, mostly in silence, along trails that ran through the forest and rocky outcrops. The scenery was magnificent, but so far there had been no sign of belek, and Soren was beginning to bore. Even with the heavy hunting clothes he could feel the cold start to penetrate. He was even beginning to struggle to stay awake in the saddle.
Eventually, after what had seemed like hours of drudgery in the freezing cold, there was some commotion up at the front of their column. He trotted forward to see what was going on. Jarod was on the ground, bent down inspecting a massive clawed paw print.
‘It’s crisply outlined. Still fresh. It isn’t far ahead of us,’ he said
‘Why don’t you use dogs to sniff them out?’ Soren asked, knowing that dogs were used to hunt regularly in Ostia.
Jarod gave out a short, stifled laugh. ‘We could send dogs after one I suppose, but we wouldn’t see them again. I think you need to see a belek to understand what I mean. Now, we need to move quickly to catch up with it.’
The huntsmen broke into teams of two and trotted on ahead, moving away from the group in a fan shape, making as much noise as they could. At first Soren thought they were trying to scare the belek out of the undergrowth, but Jarod whispered to him that the belek was such an aggressive creature, it would attack the huntsmen, and that would be their opportunity to ambush it. It occurred to Soren that the job of a huntsman was not a particularly attractive one if the belek was as dangerous as Jarod was making out. It seemed that they were hunting a creature that was also hunting them.
They waited in the small clearing where the print had been found, until a howling roar that sent a shiver of panic through Soren’s gut echoed between the trees. It made the howls from the ruins of Rurip seem like the mewling of kittens. It was swiftly followed by the metallic blast of a hunting horn. Jarod blew a long note from his in response and they were off, the massive horses thundering between the trees of the forest. While Soren was a competent rider, he had not the years of experience that the others had, and fell to the rear of the pack along with another rider, who was on a slightly smaller, and what Soren assumed was younger, horse.
There was another roar, closer now and then the scream of a horse beside him. The other horse, distracted by the roar, had put a foot wrong and stumbled, throwing its rider. Soren cast a glance over his shoulder, and spotted the prone form. The riders in front of him were so intent on their prey that they did not notice the fallen rider, and Soren’s calls to them were lost beneath the pounding hooves of the heavy horses. Soren reined back hard, amazed by his horse’s reluctance to stop. It wanted to go on; it wanted a fight.
After several paces it slowed back to a trot, shaking its head with irritation. Soren wheeled about and the horse snorted loudly with indignation. He walked the horse back to where the fallen rider was and slipped down out of his saddle, holding the horse by the reins. He had no doubt that if given half the chance it would charge after its friends in search of the belek. He knelt by the prone form, which let out a decidedly feminine groan. He pulled back the face warmer from her hat. It was Alys.
‘What in three hells are you doing here?’
‘Hunting belek, what did you think?’ she replied.
‘You shouldn’t have come. I can only imagine how much trouble this will make for Jarod when your father finds out,’ said Soren.
‘How can I expect to win the loyalty of my nobles when I am Princess Regent if I have not hunted. I have to be able to show I can match them!’ she said.
Soren shook his head. ‘Come, let’s get your horse back, and you on it.’
There was a particularly loud snort from his horse, and it jerked sharply, pulling the reins from his hand. Then there was a low, earthy, rumbling growl.
The belek was an incredible creature. It was like a cross between the bears and wolves and great cats he had seen in the menagerie in Ostenheim, large, sleek and powerful. Its coat shimmered in the pale winter sunlight like gleaming metal armour. It circled slowly around them, its large blue eyes flicking from Soren to Alys and back again, a raw, feral intelligence emanating from them. Its pointed ears flickered at any sound, as its large paws gently crunched on the snow. It had two wicked fangs, curving down out of its mouth from its top jaw, sharp and deadly looking.
Soren’s horse stamped one of its hoofs against the ground and snorted aggressively. Alys’s had bolted and was nowhere to be seen.
The belek let out another long, low growl and Soren’s horse charged, no longer able to contain its boiling aggression. The belek screeched like a cat, pouncing out of the way of the horse’s hooves as it attempted to stamp the evil looking creature to death. The horse was larger and stronger, but did not have the agility of the belek. It struggled to turn quickly enough as the belek dashed around behind it. It kicked out with its hind legs and the belek once again enjoyed a narrow escape. Soren and Alys looked on, stunned.
His spear was still attached to the saddle on the horse and there was no chance of retrieving it, so he drew his sword. The horse knocked the belek to one side with a ferocious kick that would have crushed a man, sending it rolling across the snow. It quickly found its feet and pounced back before the horse had a chance to react. The belek lashed out at the horse’s leg with one paw, its large claws slashed through the muscle and tendon in the back of the horse’s leg. The horse’s leg gave way instantly and the horse fell to the ground, roaring in pain. He thrashed on the ground in agony, but the belek was no longer interested in him. Its focus was now purely on Soren.
Soren took a faltering step back toward Alys, who still lay on the ground, as he fought to ensure his courage would not fail him. Fear was not something he usually had to contend with. Death was commonplace on the streets and fearing it was of no benefit. One quickly learned to just get on with things. If you died, you died, if not, all the better. Death may be still waiting the next day. There was something about the belek that did inspire fear though, a deep, primal one that Soren could not control. It was the intelligent, predatory desire in its eyes. It not only wanted to kill him for food, it wanted to do it for the sheer enjoyment of the kill.
The belek prowled slowly forward, carefully placing each paw as it surveyed Soren; its eyes brimmed with calculating intelligence. Soren lashed forward, piercing the belek in the shoulder. The creature had not expected the attack and for an instant it was stunned. That instant did not lost long however, and with lightening speed it leapt back out of reach and let out a l
oud rasping roar. Soren felt calmed by having scored a hit; his wavering courage had now firmed up. The belek’s blood glistening on the end of his sword filled him with determination. Emeric’s words echoed in his ears. ‘If it bleeds, you can kill it.’
The belek came at him again and Soren lunged to counter but it dodged to the side. He twisted and tried to catch the beast on the move, but it swatted his blade away with a paw, and pounced forward without missing a step. Soren slashed at it again, but missed. This massive beast was far larger, far quicker and far more agile than any man. No matter what way he considered it, survival seemed unlikely.
A blast from a hunting horn caught his attention, stealing a part of his concentration that was vitally needed against the belek. Alys had composed herself and was signalling the hunt for help. The belek took advantage of this lapse in concentration and swatted at Soren’s sword, driving its tip down to the ground and into the snow covered mud. With a second swipe of its paw, it pressed down on the blade on its flat side. Soren watched in horror as the sword bent, and then snapped, only an inch from the hilt. Why couldn’t he just have let go of it? He hurled the hilt at the beast’s head, but it merely batted it away with a flash of its unnaturally fast paws. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought for a moment he saw the flicker of a smile on the belek’s snarling face.
Help would be coming soon; it had to. The other hunters would heed the sound of the horn. All he had to do was draw the beast away from Alys and survive for just a few more seconds. He began shouting at the belek, anything and everything, all of the curses he could bring to mind. His face warmer had fallen open and flapped irritatingly about his face so he pulled his hat off and threw it at the belek who caught it in its mouth and then tossed it aside. He edged his way toward his now barely twitching horse, and away from Alys. Just as importantly, he was also edging toward his spear.
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